GF Breadsticks: Baking for Bette

I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe I should have called this post “Baking for Hagrid, umm… I mean, Hagman”. Not because Ms. Hagman resembled Hagrid at all, but because I made these yummy bread sticks large enough to feed a GIANT! They are humungous!

Let me be honest. I don’t bake much from Hagman’s recipe books any more. However, now that I have taste-tested this bread stick recipe again, I think it might have to make itself back in to my rotation of things.

I realized today that there are many things for which I am thankful in regards to Bette’s pioneering with gluten free baking. First, I have the *option* of not baking with her million mixes thanks to her experimentation with different flours AND really because of the same mixes of flours that drive me wild. I know that the different ratios I try out and the different flours that are available to me now were not available to Ms. Hagman when she was first diagnosed. It’s amazing, really.

While I was baking, I began a zillion other little projects. I had to refill the tapioca starch container. This meant digging through the recent purchase to find the tapioca starch bags. That, of course, helped me run in to the cornstarch that I bought to refill that container, and the brown sugar, and the powdered sugar, and … well… the list goes on.

I marveled at the fact that I used to have a walk in pantry in my old apartment in Chicago and despite that fact that we live in a house now, the storage space seems remarkably absent. Especially in the kitchen. Well wait, especially in a Celiac/Gluten-free kitchen. Good lord. Forty-five minutes later, I resumed my flour mixing for the bread sticks. ; ) However, then I had to go off in search of things that I have rarely used (egg replacer and dough enhancer). My goodness! No wonder Celiacs I’ve met who were diagnosed a long time ago just don’t eat baked goods! (A colleague’s wife falls in to this category. She literally eats salads, fruits, veggies, and naked chicken. Yummy. LOL)

I don’t think I can post Bette’s recipe here (for those of you wondering). I got it out of the “Gluten Free Gourmet Bakes Bread” book. Safe to say, these bread sticks are a tad way larger than Bette intended. I followed her recipe (as a means to honoring her) and snipped the tip of my baggie. Then I filled the baggie and began to walk to the pans where I was to squeeze out some delicate bread sticks that measured 1/2″ by 4″.

Um. Yeah. Didn’t happen that way. When I got over to the silpat covered pans (a deviation from Hagman’s recipe), I started to squeeze my baggie when I realized that my “snip” was more of a “whack” and I would be creating Hagrid-sized breadsticks. My breadsticks were about 1″ wide and 8 ” long. (This increased the baking time by almost double. Her recipe calls for 10 minutes of baking. I think mine took more like 18.)

While I wondered just how MUCH these bad boys were gonna rise (2 T of yeast!!!), I decided to do myself a favor and flavor these guys up a bit. I brushed the tops with melted butter and then sprinkled two of each with different toppings. I used sea salt/kosher salt, dried garlic/onion mix, toasted sesame seeds, rosemary/tarragon blend, etc.

Taking the nicely browned bread sticks out of the oven quickly transported me back to college when we would order “bread sticks” with our pizza. It was really just pizza dough in blob form and coated with garlic. We would dip these delights in pizza sauce. Not so nutritional, but made for a cheap college meal. (My college had no meal service on Sunday nights. This was a regular menu item.) Thankfully, I had about 1/3 cup pizza sauce in a Tupperware container in the fridge. (I wonder what I was saving that for….) Oh yea! Delish!

Thank you, Bette, for making my life easier. Thank you encouraging all of us to get in the kitchen and try things. Thank you for all of your experiments, recipes, and teachings. You built a great foundation. Now, let’s raise the stakes, people! Let’s really get Gourmet with our Gluten-Free.

This post is in Honor of Bette Hagman and all of her pioneering with gluten free cooking. Please feel free to join in and Bake for Bette too. Seamaiden (www.BookOfYum.com) is the Blog Event Sponsor. Please link back to her in your post or send your pictures to her (if you don’t blog). Thank you.

Lovely photo! You make me drool over those bread sticks. I just went out and bought more tapioca and rice flour. I think I need to make bread sticks today. Right after I make zuchini bread! (Do you have a recipe for zuchini bread?)

You asked if I made the “Baked in honor of Bette” sticker that’s on my blog post. No, I didn’t make it Erin S. at Gluten-Free Funmade it. She is encouraging everyone to use it so go for it. This is a great post!

Thanks so much for your lovely comments and Welcome, Cloudsome! I’m off to GLutenFreeFun to inquire about that image/link. =) -Kate

They look yummy. I’ve never used dough enhancer or egg replacement, so I’m curious to hear if you think it’s really necessary? I’ve used xantham gum in some recipes to give elasticity, so I’d be curious to hear thoughts.

Oh – I wish I could answer this question. I know that dough enhancer is replaced by vinegar in a lot of the most recent recipes I’ve been running across and using. I’m not sure what role the egg replacer has, to be honest. The recipe does use two egg whites in addition to the “egg replacer” so I’m at a loss there. Maybe someone else knows??? You’ve given me an agenda now though – I’ve got to find out more about the chemistry in our GF kitchens! – Kate